MILLO, the UK’s up and coming sensation

Tell us about yourself and your music

I’m a 22-year-old alternative hip-hop artist from the South West of the UK. My first creation of music began at the start of 2020, for years I have wanted to write my own music which I did every now and then, but never really pursued anything. This year was the year I decided to finally take it up.

Talk to us more about your latest release

My most recent release “Blackout” is about the heavy antics of long drinking session and then “blacking out” and remembering nothing the next morning. This resonates with many people as it’s very common in drinking culture, especially within the UK. The beat has a beautiful piano-laden soulful vibe to it which adds to the authenticity and uniqueness of the song.

What inspired you to write this release?

The inspiration came from personal experience, this is something that had happened to me many times in my life. Writing about your own life experiences is easy, this along with it being extremely relatable made me think that it would be a perfect and enjoyable story in song form.

Describe the writing and recording process

The writing process of this track was definitely one of my most enjoyable. In my own personal opinion, this song is definitely the best I have written lyrically. The rhyming and the flow gave me a lot of joy, listening back to it for sure. The recording was a big graft, but a fantastic experience nonetheless, because of the range of vocals throughout. The chorus is in a much higher key than the verses are, so having to differentiate from both wasn’t easy. However, the difficulty of this makes it more challenging which as in artist, is what I thrive to do. I want to be unique and create music people want to hear.

Any plans to hit the road?

Due to me being quite fresh in the music scene and the fact that Covid-19 happened, no gigs have been happening yet. I’ve definitely had calls and interests for it to happen, which it will after the release of my next album. You’ll see it soon enough.

As an indie artist, how do you brand yourself and your music to stand out from the rest of the artists out there?

I tend to add a lot of vocal range to my tracks to show my versatility. My genre is definitely Alternative Hip-Hop, but I like to add components of other genres to add some spice to my work. Upbeat and positives songs are amazing, but the storytelling of deeper and more meaningful songs that tell real-life stories is also just as important, so the fact that I have this spectrum of different vibes is what makes my music stand out.

Who have you been listening to lately?

Juice WRLDs post-humous album came out recently, so as a big inspiration of mine, I have been listening to that a lot. XXXTENTACION has powerful music that I tend to listen to a lot. I also love to listen to current British artists like Harry Styles and Bastille. Both top artists in the game who both have incredible and meaningful storytelling in their music.

Who are your biggest influences?

I have a few influences, Freddie Mercury was the first person who made me want to sing because of how brilliant he was at singing, so that was definitely the beginning of my musical interest. I saw Post Malone live at a festival once, seeing how hyped he made the crowd made me instantly want to be the one on stage. His engagement with the crowd was compelling, that was a massive turning point in my life into wanting to create myself. My genre is very inspired by juice WRLD, just not in a lyrical sense. I wanted to tell my own stories in the form of this particular musical style, just without the talk of drugs and more of the interesting and different topics and in life.

Tell us about your passions

Music has evidently been my drive in life, I have been surrounded by it since I was little. My Gran was locally known for her music. My mother was a music teacher who had a degree in music, my sister also did singing herself and won many competitions. It was all around me and it’s what made me do it. I also love football (soccer) for several reasons. Just like music, it brings people together like a family, the passion that people have for their teams, I feel like it can relate to being fans of certain artists in away. I also just love being fit and healthy which is a big part of football, running around and keeping fit is a big part of positive mental health, it’s important.

What else is happening next in your world?

An album called “A Grand Awakening” is coming around October time. I have been working on it for months now and I hope to make it as perfect as possible, to attract new fans to my music and to hopefully tell the world of my life stories. Depending on how successful that does, I will start to perform on stage and give people some joy, that is my number one aim.